Sally Laird becomes editor of Index. Laird had studied Russian and languages at university and prior to Index worked at Amnesty.
Index is the first to publish Samuel Beckett’s play Catastrophe, which is dedicated to Václav Havel. Václav Havel writes a play in response to Beckett’s, entitled Mistake, also published in Index for the first time that same year. As part of the campaign to raise awareness about persecuted writers in Czechoslovakia, a t-shirt is created reading: “If Samuel Beckett had been born in Czechoslovakia we’d still be waiting for Godot.”
George Theiner becomes editor of Index. Born to Czech-Jewish parents, Theiner served time in a forced labour camp for refusing to join the Communist Party. After his release, he worked as a technical editor in an educational publishing house, Artia, and began translating Czech literary works into English. When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, Theiner fled to England with his family and worked for various publishing houses before joining Index on Censorship in 1972 as an assistant editor. Theiner died in 1988. He remained editor until his death.
The magazine publishes a beautiful collection of small obituaries for him, written by several of the famous writers he had translated for or otherwise encountered. In 2011, in recognition of the work he had done to promote Czech literature and culture, World of Books created the George Theiner Award, to be given to “people and organisations outside the Czech Republic who have made long-term contributions to the promotion of Czech literature and free expression across the globe.”
Hugh Lunghi takes over from Scammell as the editor of Index. Prior to Index, Lunghi worked at the BBC World Service for many years, including being their lead commentator during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
When he left the BBC in 1980, he immediately became director of the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust, and with it took over the responsibility of editing the Index on Censorship from Scammell.